Fair warning before we start, this is going to be blunt and honest. I'm going to try and give my perspective on everything happening in the community as of late and I don't plan on sugarcoating. I'm just gonna speak from the heart. But anyways, let's start with my favourite subject: me!

In October 2017, I joined the GRA. Up until this point, I hadn't really been a part of the community. I wrote my own stuff, and didn't really read anyone else's works, nor did I interact with anyone. Probably the one exception to this was the GRA. I read everything the GRA put out, I had one of my books reviewed privately, I even appeared on a GRA podcast. For me, joining the GRA and becoming an actual part of that little community meant a lot.

Now something you may not know about me is that I am the worst at socialising. It's not that once I'm in a social situation I can't function, more that I find it very difficult to start these interactions. I am terrible at starting conversation. Meeting someone new gives me crazy anxiety and I really struggle to make new friends because I just can't really be myself until someone properly knows me. When I joined the GRA chat, I don't think I said a word for about 2 weeks until someone asked me a question and gave me a reason to say something back.

With Kat, it was a little bit different. For whatever reason, I became myself when speaking to Kat very quickly. It was in the same GRA chat that I was trying to be polite and civil to everyone, and getting nowhere in making genuine friends, but with Kat, I found it very easy to say what was on my mind. And if you know me, you'll know that whatever was on my mind was probably some kind of rude joke.

My brain works in an odd way. When most people hear someone say a sentence, they take it in and try and think of a way to respond. When I hear a sentence, I immediately look for the joke, and when I'm comfortable around someone, I say that joke. Even my earliest interactions with Kat were like this, I was able to say whatever I wanted and I think that allowed me to settle into my new GRA role.

I think the reason behind this is Kat's personality. It doesn't take long to realise that Kat is a strong independent woman who don't need no man. She's brutally honest, passionate, fiery, and I think that I just kind of assumed that whatever was coming out my mouth, she could take it. And she could. She'd take a joke directed at her and hit it straight back. I distinctly remember calling her a bitch once and people in the chat were trying to calm us down, like we were having some crazy fight, but it was always all in good fun. 

This, I think, is where the troubles start. Kat sure seems like someone who can take anything. But she can't. She is surprisingly sensitive. The seemingly smallest thing can set her off. She's left the PWA chat countless times just because she's been upset by something that someone said. I remember last year on the awards stream, I made a joke in the chat that she talked too much. For the rest of the stream, she barely spoke a word, and when she did say something near the end, she clearly sounded like she was on the verge of tears. That's the effect a simple comment can make. Even the strongest person can be set off by the tiniest thing.

And I feel like that's something that people don't get about Kat. She can be seen as this powerful figure at the top of the PWA, ruthless, controlling and strong. But at the end of the day, she's not a villain in a fanfic. She's a person. A complicated, flawed, extremely short person. She's a normal person with normal problems and things going on in her head that nobody could possibly understand, just like me or you. It's easy to forget that when you want to accuse her of something. But whenever she has been accused, she's felt like shit. That's not intended to make anyone feel bad about what they've said or what they've done because they are also complicated people with flaws and complex emotions.

To make a long story short, I think I know Kat better than most people on Wattpad. I'd say we're pretty good friends. So when people accuse her of stuff, or when people are ignorant of all the hard work she's done, and the massive improvements made to the PWA, it breaks my heart a little. So I'm gonna say the thing that nobody seems to have said, and yet surely is obvious.

Kat is the best thing that has ever happened to the PWA.

She is not perfect and will never be perfect. 

She has made countless mistakes, and probably made even more enemies.

But I simply will not stand by and watch my friend take hit after hit after hit without ever getting the praise she deserves.

Kat is the best thing that has ever happened to the PWA and it will never be the same without her.

The sheer amount of work and effort she has put into making the awards fairer and better is frankly astonishing and the fact that nobody seems to realise this is astounding.

I really do wish Iza the best and I hope that the awards flourish under her administration. But even if the awards improve massively under their new leader, Kat will always have to take some of the credit. The awards can definitely improve but it simply cannot be the same without Kat. It breaks my heart that she felt the need to leave.

Honestly, I really hate it when people quit halfway through something. I think it shows a real lack of character and it frustrates me to no end whenever I see this happen. So even though Kat stepping down is understandable, I still think she should've stuck it out to the end of this year's awards. Every time Kat left the PWA server, I disapproved. Just because something's getting to you, doesn't mean you have to quit.

There have been many things that Kat has said or done that I have disagreed with. I personally think that Kat and Maple handled the GT incident horribly. I believe that they both tried their absolute best to handle the situation as best as possible, even going as far as to ask for professional help, but that doesn't change my opinion.

By far and away the worst thing that Kat did was allow the "shittalkers" channel in the server to get out of control. I don't think I've actually heard anyone mention this in amongst all the drama going down, and to me that's surprising because what was happening in that chat was truly horrible. Essentially, members of our community had an entire channel in the discord dedicated to talking shit about a Wattpad member outside of the server. It got worse than that though. People became obsessed. They virtually stalked him. Harassed him. It was shocking. Genuinely shocking and just horrible to witness. And Kat was a big part of this. One of many, but still played her part.

I'd always think to myself how awful this was but I'd never say anything. People seemed to enjoy it so much that I just felt like I would somehow be in the wrong by pointing out how terrible this behaviour was. Eventually, Ellison said something, the channel was deleted and Kat left the server for a bit. This is the one instance I can think of where Kat was flat out in the wrong. There was no intention of making the PWA better, like in most of her other actions, this was just a terrible thing that spiralled out of control and Kat has to take some responsibility.

Now, all of the current stuff going down was sparked by the PWA tag and from the tags we can draw some a very simple conclusion. People are very passionate about the negative aspects of the PWA and the community. It only takes a glance at most of the tags to see the least favourite question is answered in the longest and most passionate way.

And there's certainly a lot of truth being said. The trouble is, it's half-truths, baked into opinions. I think Imber's one, in particular, had a lot of good points in general, but the way she put them across was in a very opinionated, emotional way. Now that's fine, clearly, if you are passionate about something, you're going to feel emotions about it. But when you start making really strong points in an emotional way, it comes across not as constructive criticism, more as an attack.

And that's the thing. Nobody is really in the wrong here. Everyone just has their own opinions and they're all valid in their own right. Imber wrote from the heart and produced a magnificently passionate answer and that's a bold thing to do and that's brilliant. But Kat's response is equally understandable.

At the end of the day, there's not much point to whatever this was. I just wanted to put some thoughts out there and I think I've done that. I am sad that Kat is leaving. I will always be sad that Kat is leaving. I've been sad every time someone I know takes a break from Wattpad or leaves entirely. And I will never not be sad about these things. But all I can do is try my best to understand and support people's decisions.

I think we all want the community to be a better place. It's something we all want so badly and we're all desperately trying to get our opinions out there, without really thinking about the consequences of our words. But it's all been said and done now. We all make mistakes. All we can do is learn from what's happened, and try to grow as people and better ourselves.